Dare to Discover

by Maddy Smith

April, for me, will always be the month of exploration and adventure. As spring sunshine battles with West Coast rain, I seek to discover new worlds, ideas and escapades in my books. I embark on voyages of discovery within their pages and delve deep into whatever fascinating topic has me at the time, be it fantasy, history or espionage. Below are some new titles to get the next generation of investigators, spies and heroes started on their own adventures.

For the amateur detective or the young historian, Shane Peacock’s acclaimed mystery series is a great place to begin. Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Eye of the Crow (Tundra Books 2007), the first book in the Boy Sherlock Holmes Series, Shane Peacock is proving himself as one of Canada’s ablest children’s writers. His novels, starring (as you’ve no doubt deduced) Sherlock Holmes as a young boy, feature tight, tense plots, wonderfully varied characters, and an intricately drawn portrait of Victorian London in all its squalor and glory.

The young Sherlock is a far cry from the arrogant genius we all know; Peacock’s Holmes is a young man struggling to find his way in a world that refuses to understand or accept him and his brilliance. In the latest mystery, The Vanishing Girl (Tundra Books 2009) Sherlock must outwit the police and his deadly enemy Malefactor, and find Victoria Rathbone before it’s too late. A magnificent choice for 10+.

Also taking place in the murky world of Victorian London is Y.S. Lee’s A Spy in the House (Candlewick, 2010). Young Mary Quinn is a convicted thief about to face the gallows—until she is rescued and given a second chance at life in Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls. But there is far more to the Academy’s curriculum than meets the eye and Mary soon finds herself drawn into a world of espionage, romance…and murder.

With a PhD in Victorian Literature and a gift for historical detail, Lee has created a fascinating world in the oft-overlooked “domestic” domain of the Victorian female. The world Mary Quinn inhabits is a far cry from the delicate lives we imagine for 19th century women; however, despite her training, knowledge, and fierce independence, Mary is bound by the constraints of her gender in a male-dominated society. Spy in the House examines far more than mystery and murder—themes of racism, sexism and gender equality all find a place in this fascinating read for 12+.

A great choice for the would-be hero in your house: Cressida Cowell’s Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III series, beginning with How to Train Your Dragon (Hodder Children’s Books, 2003) follows the adventures of Hiccup, the son of the chief of the Hairy Hooligans and the greatest Viking hero who ever lived—only he isn’t quite yet. At the moment, he is just a rather ordinary boy with bright red hair, rather too much intelligence for a Viking, and an exceptionally unintimidating and temperamental dragon called Toothless. All Vikings use dragons to hunt for them and fight with them in battle—all Vikings, that is, that can train these terrible beasts through the sheer force of their mighty personalities. Not so easy if you’ve got a dragon like Toothless. Of course, Hiccup the Hero was famous for his abilities as a Dragon Whisperer. But what of Hiccup the boy?

In Hiccup’s latest adventure, How to Break a Dragon’s Heart (2010), Hiccup must do battle against his arch-enemy, the evil Alvin the Treacherous, complete the Impossible Task, and save his best friend Fishlegs, as well as the usual challenges of being the son of the chief and dealing with unpleasant bullies like Snotface Snotlout, a very nasty boy with very large nostrils. Will this be too much for our young hero? Don’t you believe it!

Packed with humour, courage and daring Viking do, this is a great series for 7+. It’s also well worth tracking down the audio recordings (published through Hodder Audio Books)—you’ll all be laughing out loud, I promise!

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of reading a book that’s so good you can’t put it down—a book that so captivates you that you just have to keep reading. Books can take us everywhere and anywhere, on the most dramatic and transformative of adventures. The greatest books, however, show us not only a new world, but a new way of looking at the old one, and at ourselves.

Maddy Smith is a children’s bookseller and an Islander born and bred; she reads, writes, and believes in the magic of a great book.